


Name

by soldiermom1973



Series: 1,000 years (A Reconciliation Story) [14]
Category: Mass Effect (Comics), Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect - Various Authors, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Friendly banter, Gen, N7 Month 2019, N7 month, Name, friendly teasin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 19:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21433144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldiermom1973/pseuds/soldiermom1973
Summary: Allie and the crew discuss where their names came from and she finds out she and Kaidan have one more thing in common.
Relationships: Female Shepard & Ashley Williams, Female Shepard & Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard & Liara T'Soni, Female Shepard & Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Female Shepard & Urdnot Wrex, Garrus Vakarian & Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko & Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko & Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko & Garrus Vakarian, Kaidan Alenko & Liara T'Soni, Kaidan Alenko & Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Liara T'Soni & Ashley Williams, Liara T'Soni & Garrus Vakarian, Liara T'soni & Tali'Zora nar Rayya, Urdnot Wrex & Garrus Vakarian
Series: 1,000 years (A Reconciliation Story) [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1460416
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Name

**Author's Note:**

> For [N7 Month](https://n7month.tumblr.com/post/188450175349/n7-month-challenge) over on tumblr; the prompt was 'name'.
> 
> Another peek into Allie & Kaidan's burgeoning relationship during ME1. Let me know what you think!

As the elevator slid to a stop, Allie sighed and stretched. Her report to the Council went about as well as they all usually did – either everything that went wrong was her fault or she could have done it better. She was _this close_ to hanging up on them; the only reason she didn't was because she didn't want to hear about it from Ambassador Udina or Admiral Hacket... or both.

Now that her dressing down was done, she wanted to sit with her crew and clean her gear and weapons. Not only did it relax her, but she found it was a good opportunity to bond with her crew. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing in addition to miscellaneous get-to-know-you type banter. They went over things with the mission, talking about mistakes made and sharing tactics so the next one would go better. It took a bit for each of them to hit it off with each other – the tension between Wrex and Garrus was so thick at first you could cut it with a knife, Ash had a tough time warming up to any of the aliens, but she was barely civil to Liara at first, Tali was stand-offish, and Kaidan was just Kaidan, usually quiet and taking everything in and trying to make the peace if things got out of hand (not that Allie ever let it get that far, but she wasn't always there when the group maintained their equipment).

It warmed her heart when she heard everyone laughing instead of bickering. “You guys aren't teasing Liara again, are you?” Allie asked as she settled into a spot between Kaidan and Ash.

“No, ma'am,” Ash piped up. “Just talking about how everyone got their names.”

“Really?” Allie quirked an eyebrow at the gunnery chief. Of all the things to be talking about, she didn't think the etymology of everyone's names would be on the list.

“Yeah. Like how complex salarian names are compared to humans,” she shrugged.

“Not all humans,” Kaidan reminded her. “There are a lot of cultures where names can carry a lot of weight and tradition.”

Ash conceded his point and continued, “Anyway, I mentioned that my parents didn't want to know my gender before I was born and if I'd been a boy, I would have been Marcus, after my dad's dad. Garrus said I didn't look like a Marcus and I said he didn't look like a Garrus, more like a Polly and then I had to explain “Polly wants a cracker” to him. That's why we were laughing.”

Allie chuckled, thankful that her crew were comfortable enough with each other now to not be upset by some light-hearted teasing. “Nice, Chief,” Allie grinned, taking her shotgun apart. “So where did Ashley come from?”

“It's my mom's middle name,” she explained. “All of us are named after someone in the family. Abby is named after one of my great-grandmothers, Lynn is actually my dad's middle name, and Sar is named after Dad's mom.”

“So who was Marcus, then?” Garrus asked.

“He was my dad's dad,” she answered.

“You said about salarian names being complex, which is true,” Liara chimed in, “but they're complex for a reason. It serves to let other salarians know where they come from and can be helpful when negotiating breeding contracts. Your parents' choice to name their daughters after family members is a bit similar. It reminds you where you come from, who your descendants are, though I don't think humans have breeding contracts, correct?” she frowned.

Everyone tittered a little and Allie explained that no, humans don't typically have breeding contracts the way salarians do, but there was the occasional arranged marriage, but that was a whole 'nother story she didn't want to get into.

“And the asari don't do that?” Garrus asked. “You don't know anyone who was named after someone else.”

“I didn't say that,” Liara replied. “I was merely observing that as different as our cultures seem, we actually have quite a bit in common.”

“Yes, even we quarians have names that let people know where we're from.,” Tali added. “For instance, my last name – nar Rayya – is the ship I was born on. Once I complete my pilgramage and am accepted on another ship, my last name will change.”

“What about your first name, Tali?” Allie asked. “Were you named after anyone?”

“I don't think so,” the young quarian answered. “My mother died many years ago and my father isn't the type to have that kind of conversation. To be honest, I never gave it much thought before now. Perhaps I should send him a message and ask.”

“What about you, Wrex?” Ash asked the krogan. “You've been awfully quiet for all of this.”

“What's to talk about?” Wrex gruffily responded. “I'm from Clan Urdnot, so if I bother to introduce myself by something other than sticking my shotgun in your face, I'm Urdnot Wrex. Not that it matters much, not out here. No one cares for their clan names anymore. Otherwise, I'm just Wrex. That's it.”

“So you weren't named after someone?” Liara asked.

“Don't know. Don't care,” he shrugged.

“How about you, Commander?” Tali asked.

Allie laughed when she thought about how she got her name. Her parents loved to tell the story and as she got older and understood it better, she loved to tell it, too. “It's funny, actually. When Mom found out she was pregnant with me, she and Dad had all the tests done to make sure I'd be healthy. The doc said I was going to be a boy, so my name was supposed to be Albert, following a family tradition. I would have been Albert IV; my dad was known as Bert, his dad was Al, and _his_ dad was Albie. Needless to say when I was born, they had to think of something else in a hurry, so I just became 'Allie'.”

As she spoke, she noticed Kaidan stopped what he was doing and stared at her with one eyebrow raised. She wasn't sure if he thought she was joking or he he was thinking about making a joke. After all, 'Albert' was considered to be an funny name and not usually a good kind of funny.

“And here I was thinking your name was a nickname for something,” Ash mused. “Like how everyone calls me Ash instead of Ashley.”

Things were quiet for a few moments while everyone focused on cleaning their gear. “Alenko, we haven't heard from you, yet, about all of this,” Garrus observed. “Where'd your name come from?”

“My dad's family is Ukranian, so when Mom found out she was pregnant, they wanted to keep things traditional. Well, kind of traditional, anyway.” He kept his eyes on his pistol as he reassembled it. “I mean, they were living in Singapore at the time with no idea about when Dad would transfer, so they didn't want to burden me with Cyrillic spelling and pronunciation. My last name roughly translates to 'son of Al'. Mom found my first name in some baby book and really liked it. Dad tried explaining to her that it means 'shackles'. He didn't want his family thinking they felt burdened by having a baby, but she didn't care. She just really liked the name.”

“So, you're Kaidan, son of Al,” Liara noted.

“Yeah,” Kaidan shrugged. “That's one way to look at it.”

“Do you have a middle name?” Ash asked.

Kaidan let out a heavy sigh and glanced at Allie again, who frowned. “Kaidan, if you're embarrassed about it or something, you don't have to talk about it.” she said.

“It isn't embarrassing, ma'am,” he replied. “Just... well... my middle name is Albert.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked between Allie and Kaidan. Allie couldn't suppress her grin. “You're kidding. Your middle name is what my parents were going to name me? That's actually pretty funny.”

“Kaidan Albert Alenko. I like it,” Liara stated.

“Oh, I'm not saying I don't like it,” Allie argued.

Heat immediately crept up her neck when Wrex started to chuckle. “Oh, I'm pretty sure we all know his name isn't the only thing you like about him,” he grinned.

Allie shot him a dirty look while Kaidan looked like he wanted to crawl under the work table and die of embarrassment.

“So, does this mean we can call you Al 1 and Al 2?” Garrus laughed, trying to reassemble his sniper rifle.

“No,” both Allie and Kaidan said it at the same time, which just made everyone laugh even harder. 

“Actually, there's a really old earth song and one of the lines is 'I can call you Benny and Benny when you call me you can call me Al'” Ash guffawed, wiping tears from her eyes. “So instead of Al 1 and Al 2, we can have Benny and Al.”

“Absolutely not,” they both answered, again at the same time, which only served to make everyone laugh even harder.

Allie knew from past experience if she said much else, she'd make things worse and judging from the look on Kaidan's face, the last thing he was thinking about was saying anything. So, Allie just focused on adjusting the scope on her sniper rifle, only half-listening as her friends continued to tease the pair about their names.

Every once in a while, she'd feel a nudge under the table, and she'd pause what she was doing to look around her crew, her gaze lingering on Kaidan who would give her a look out of the corner of his eye while the faintest hint of a smile pulled at his mouth. His face was still beet red, but it seemed he was adjusting to, and maybe actually enjoying, the teasing the rest of the crew was dishing out.

Not getting a reaction from either Allie or Kaidan meant the group soon moved on to other topics of discussion. Kaidan piped up to debate with Tali about whether the Logic Arrest or Nexus put out a better omni-tool and Allie had to remind Tali and Garrus to share the dextro-chocolate she picked up on Noveria. As they finished up, everyone secured their gear in their lockers and went about their other job duties.

Allie wound up in her quarters, talking to Captain Anderson about her frustration with the Council when her door chimed. She said she could tell whoever it was to come back later, but Anderson said he needed to go anyway. When the call ended, she pressed a button on her desk, allowing her visitor to come in.

“You left your tea,” Kaidan said, taking only a few steps inside.

“I did?” Even though Kaidan was holding the mug in front of him, she still glanced around her quarters to look for it. “Well, shit. Thanks for bringing it up.”

She turned on her hot plate and placed her mug on it, thankful she didn't have to make another cup. She sat at her desk and said, “Was there anything else?”

“Could I ask you a personal question, ma'am?” Kaidan asked, clasping his hands behind his back.

“Sure, but only if you actually come in and have a seat.” Allie's smile was warm and inviting and Kaidan smiled back, situating himself on the edge of her bed.

“Would it have bothered you to have been a fourth?”

“You mean my name if I'd been a boy?” Allie frowned and thought for a moment. “Right now, no, I don't think it would have. I actually think that kind of naming tradition is neat, but I'm not Albert Alan Shepard IV. I'm Allie Lynn Shepard. It's possible if I'd grown up with that name, I'd actually hate it. Why?”

“Just curious,” he said, bracing his arms on his knees and rubbing his hands together. “I've never met anyone else who was a junior or a third or anything like that, which is surprising, considering the number of people I've served with. I actually don't know any Alberts, either.”

He paused for a moment, studying his hands before asking, “If you decide to have kids, do you think you'd pick that back up? Name one of them after your dad or something?”

“Yeah, probably,” Allie answered, retrieving her reheated tea and taking a careful sip. “That's not going to happen for a while, though. Right now I enjoy flying around in spaceships too much to raise a family. Deployments can be really tough and when I have a kid or three, I want to actually be around to raise them. And I actually have to find Mr. Right and persuade him to do that. I mean, he might want to name the child after himself.”

Kaidan chuckled, stood, and walked to the door. “I don't know, ma'am. I don't somehow think you'd have a problem persuading your Mr. Right of anything.”

His eyebrow twitched and one corner of his lip turned up in a smirk, leaving Allie stunned. Was he flirting with her? Was he insinuating he was her Mr. Right? Before she could say anything, his smile widened and he said, “Thanks for the chat, Allie. See you at chow.”

Allie blinked at the door, wondering if the last part of their conversation actually happened or if she just imagined the flirtatious look on Kaidan's face and the coy tone of his voice. “Kaidan Albert Alenko, II,” she mused to herself. “I'd be more than ok having a kid with that name.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love hearing how people got their name - mine is unusual & I love telling the story about how my parents came up with it - so I figured it might make a good topic for discussion among the crew during their downtime. Also, my dad is a II (not junior, goodness that would put you on his bad side in a hurry), though since his dad died, he dropped that designator. I went to school with a guy who was a IV and worked for another guy who was also a IV. I just think that stuff is cool.
> 
> Feel free to let me know the story behind your name!


End file.
